Conyers: There Is Only One Way To Prevent Torture

(Washington)-- Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee John Conyers, Jr. today released the following statement:

As Americans digest the awful revelations in the Bush-era OLC opinions, our nation faces a critical choice – what will we do to ensure that abuses like those described in these memos are never again ordered by our leaders or justified by our lawyers? To me, the answer is obvious. We must have a full investigation of the circumstances under which these torture methods were created, approved, and implemented, preferably by an independent commission as I previously proposed. And if our leaders are found to have violated the strict laws against torture, either by ordering these techniques without proper legal authority or by knowingly crafting legal fictions to justify the torture, they should be criminally prosecuted. It is simply obvious that, if there is no accountability when wrongdoing is exposed, future violations will not be deterred.

I believe a commission is the best forum to resolve the difficult issues raised by the ever-increasing documentary record of Bush administration interrogation abuses. To take just one example, today two former Bush administration officials again took to the papers to justify these practices by claiming that the interrogation of Abu Zubaydeh had been a clear success and had led to the disruption of terrorist plots. Yet just two weeks ago, former Bush administration officials who monitored this interrogation told reporters that 'not a single significant plot was foiled' as a result. The American people deserve a non-partisan answer to such fundamental questions.

"Finally, I do not understand the statements by the president and the attorney general yesterday on the issue of potential prosecutions to address the senior officials and government attorneys who crafted and approved these programs. Further, yesterday’s statements did not address the legality of any conduct that exceeded even the minimal boundaries established by the OLC memos, or any interrogations that occurred before legal guidance was provided."

 

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